Sunday, 19 July 2009

Postcards for Expecting Moms

By way of happy circumstance, I was recently privileged to shoot three expecting moms. Having a child is a pretty big deal and I really wanted to ensure that the Moms and Dads would get Postcards that would appropriately record some of the emotion associated with the nine month build-up to the big event.

I had in mind three scenes. The first was a low key (dark) environment, which would allow me to explore the ‘mystery’ and ‘drama’ of pregnancy, especially by highlighting the wonderful shape that pregnant bellies have. The second was a high key (light) environment, which would allow me to explore the ‘lighter’ side of pregnancy (literally and figuratively) and to capture more of the whole person. The third was a ‘contextual’ environment, which would use the nursery as a backdrop.

The first family shoot was with Stephane Lagrange and his wife Maia. Stephane is also a photographer and to be asked to shoot his wife and him at this Life Moment was a huge honour.

Maia led off the session with a request to use a wonderful exposed concrete column as part of the composition. Unfortunately, the column was across the room from the background, which meant we would normally see all the bits and pieces of the studio in the background. However with a bit of work (and lots of help from Stephane), we darkened up the background by draping a black cloth over a painter’s pole clamped to two light stands. It was very hard to pre-visualize this series when we were shooting, so I was very pleasantly surprised when they turned out with what I had in mind.

After this series, we moved over to the black seamless background and ran through a series where I focused on different lighting to highlight Maia’s pregnancy. Maia must have felt her baby boy, Maximilien, move because this incredible look came over her face. This one expression sums up "motherhood" for me. I felt incredibly blessed to be there and make the capture.

The second shoot was with the Melos. Andre, Natalia, and little Andre. I flipped the order around and shot high-key first. High key shooting is much easier to pre-visualize so we were able to shoot a lot of frames quite quickly.

Since I quickly burned through the high key shots, I had lots of time to shot some low-key shots. For this series, I was able to include some of the studio props for variety.

The third shoot was more of a challenge because the Mom didn’t really want to have her picture taken. I spent weeks trying to get Angie into the studio. I finally convinced her to take a few minutes at her house and we shot in the nursery with Andy.

The small nursery limited my options for composition, meaning I couldn't avoid the window. I chose to blow the window out in many of the shots to prevent it from being a distraction.

I’m sure the baby will love the bright colours of the nursery, but they required careful exposure and post-processing on my part in order to keep the dynamic range.

To be able to provide a Postcard for Stephane, Maia, Andre, Natalia, Andy and Angela was a thrill and I hope I captured the moment appropriately for them.

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About Postcards

Much like a tourist would purchase a postcard to document a special place on a trip, I try to capture life moments on a 'postcard' to share with others. These postcards may be from my own life or from someone who wanted me to create their own personal postcards. I hope you enjoy viewing these postcards as much as I did creating them.

To see more of my blog post, click on one of the key words to the right of the page, then use the "Older" and "Newer" links at the bottom of each post.

Many of my images are available as hand-made fine art prints. To see what is available and to buy one, head over to my web gallery here.